


you were far from me, yet here you will be

by CherFleur



Series: SW prompts [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27238396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherFleur/pseuds/CherFleur
Summary: Tup had been ready. He'd been waiting for the chance to rest.He should have known better.ORJon had always trusted in the Force, in what it told him. There were grim tidings in his future, but his path remained true.And then.
Relationships: pre Jon Antilles/Tup
Series: SW prompts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1971988
Comments: 15
Kudos: 122





	you were far from me, yet here you will be

**Author's Note:**

> Discord prompt from Mya: Jon/Tup Time travel
> 
> She really understands me, lol

The Force had been vaguely foreboding, almost resigned to grief for the past few days, and Jon had figured that it would be soon.

That he would be so needed, that he would give all he had in the name of the Force, and then he would join it. Become one outside of the limits of flesh and finally know true serenity in a way that he’d dreamed of since he’d been small.

Moments of peace could be found, but his was a fractious existence.

Now, though, he could hear something else, blaring in the Force.

_Over here, over here!_

A pull away from the planet he was currently on, waiting for whatever it was that would call him to his doom. This was certainly a _drive_ , a need to be somewhere, but that melancholy affection and grim knowledge was suddenly lifted from Jon like mist in dawns light.

Hope.

What he was chasing now, what he raced for now, it was hope.

Even the tiniest spark of it, could turn into an inferno and Jon had learned a thing or two from Knol about fire, Fay about the Force, and Nico about _people_ to know what was at the end of this trail. Someone was a flicker of what might be, was waiting for possibility and needed the hammer to not reach the anvil.

Jon had never denied someone in need, and he wouldn’t start now.

~

Tup woke up with blood in his mouth and screams trapped in his chest.

_Good soldiers follow orders good soldiers follow orders good soldiers –_

Tup didn’t want to be a good soldier anymore. Tup didn’t want to be much of anything anymore, now that he was back, and his brain wasn’t melting telling him things that he’d had nightmares about for ages. Now that he was living with the low grade constant headache and fire was waiting at the edges of his mind to strike once again.

_Good soldiers follow order good soldiers follow orders –_

Because he didn’t care to be good, didn’t care to be a soldier and try to kill the people they were made for, Tup left. It hurt, to leave Dogma and the others behind, but he couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t lose himself to the meltdown of his own thoughts as what made him Tup was scraped away slowly and then all at once.

He couldn’t do it. Not again.

So he stole onto a supply shuttle with brothers who were being sent to the front, he hid, and then he made his way out into the galaxy. It was a big place.

Part of him hoped that distance from the Jedi might help, that distance from his brothers – he missed them, he missed Dogma _so much but he couldn’t_ – would keep it at bay. That he would be able to open his eyes and not have terror playing behind his eyelids, laying in wait for an awful eventuality.

Tup was defective. Defective clones were decommissioned.

_But had he actually been_ defective _or had he been –_

Tup didn’t care. He didn’t. Fives had known and he would have done everything he could have to save everyone else, to make it right. Tup had faith in that even if – even if he was here again.

Even if he was going to go insane and try to kill another Jedi, at least this time he’d be far, far away from any of them. He’d be out in the middle of nowhere with base supplies and half terrified half resigned plans of what to do when the chip activated again. What to do when –

Curling up on his cot, he shivered.

Perhaps the worst thought about this, was that this time, this time, he’d die alone.

But it would only be him. Only him.

_Good soldiers follow orders good soldiers follow orders good soldiers_ –

He wished that he’d stayed gone.

~

When Jon happened upon the little impromptu camp after wandering the wilds for a week, he knew he’d found what the Force had bade him look for. He knew that the newfound hope it had shown him was in that tent.

He hadn’t expected the miasma of fear and guilt and _misery,_ but Jon really should have. Sometimes the brightest lights came out of the darkest of places.

Stepping into the camp, he recognized some of the gear. Even if he didn’t have clone soldiers and lead no armies, he had saved enough even so soon into the war to know their equipment. Jon rolled the idea of this new hope being a clone around in his mind, a deserter, and found that he couldn’t find fault in it. Wouldn’t it just be ironic, that his fate was changed by one of those he’d refused to take part in enslaving?

Jon didn’t believe in coincidence, he believed in the Force.

He cleared his throat quietly, breaking the mire of despair hidden inside the tent. A sharp breath and then a tent flap was pushed aside for a clone to step out.

It was jarring, for a moment, to see the face of a young man where on most clones they looked older already. The advanced aging that Fay often ranted about and tried to fix on the sly a time or two from a distance but could only hit a few clones at a time without the Jedi around them noticing her.

This clone, this man, must not have been done with his training yet. There was no personal recognition in his brown eyes, though Jon was apparently instantly identified as a Jedi despite his ragged appearance.

“I thought I was safe,” fell whisper soft from a horrified mouth. “I thought I wouldn’t…”

It hurt Jon, to bring such anguish, to watch light fade in dark eyes even as they began to fill with tears and the young man stared down at his hands.

How had his fellow Jedi not seen the truth in this and stood against the Senate? How could clones desert and still they lead them to their deaths in battle without choice?

Jon had never liked inspiring fear, had never liked the menace he had learned to exude to do his duty even if he used it to his advantage. He was a fighter, and his overall mien helped him complete his missions and help those in need.

Right now, he didn’t need his lightsaber, but there was still someone in need.

Stepping forward as the clone fell to his knees, his hands coming up to cover his face, Jon knelt before the young man. His hair was longer than Jon had seen a clone’s before, curling in a low tail slightly matted with fear sweat.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jon spoke quietly.

A long moment of silence as the clone near hyperventilated into his hands, shoulders shaking with near hysteria.

“It’s – it’s not _me_ I’m worried about!” was bitten out, hands falling to scrabble at shabby clothes with naught else to do. “I won’t – I _can’t_ do this!”

The man deflated, all energy leaving him at once as he stared up at Jon helplessly, looking so lost that it made Jon’s chest ache.

“I was made for the Jedi; I don’t want to kill them.”

Jon let himself feel his surprise for a quick moment, the Force an unfortunate guide to the truth in this statement. This clone didn’t want to kill Jedi, and yet he was absolutely convinced that he was going to do so.

“Why would you kill a Jedi?”

“It’s in my head,” tears fell over tan cheeks splotched with red from emotion, a grimace on his face. “Might be in all our heads, I don’t know,” a sob. “I don’t know but _good soldiers follow orders –”_

The faint impression of a blaster in hand, someone else’s words falling from his mouth “Good soldiers follow orders” and his mind burning, burning, burning because Tup was being eaten alive and –

The Force rang like a gong deep in Jon’s bones. This. This was important, so very important. His own survival rather than following the will of the Force to his death was nothing in comparison to the millions of lives that could be lost in this.

“Tup,” fell from Jon’s lips without input from his mind. “Be not afraid.”

Wide, watery eyes looked up at him in shock at the sound of his name before the clone swallowed heavily against his despair. Jon lifted a hand and put it on a shoulder that felt thinner than it should, likely because of stress.

“The Force lead me to you for a reason,” he continued quietly, trying to be as reassuring as he could. “And I’ll see it through.”

Tup sniffed, leaning into the touch subconsciously in a way that Jon sometimes recognized in himself, only without any of the self-consciousness or embarrassment. He bet that the clones had a very tactile culture amongst them and experience a different kind of touch deficiency to be away from each other.

He squeezed Tup’s shoulder.

“What’s your name, sir?” was asked in a rough, watery voice, something timid but not completely defeated in his voice.

“Not sir, for one,” he quirked one corner of his mouth in what resembled reassurance. “I’m Jedi Master Jon Antilles, and your very existence will save many lives, including my own.”

The Force sang with this truth, with the hope that Tup represented from whatever or wherever he had come from. While perhaps Tup was full of horror and fear and tried to flee from an unforgiving potential fate, he was the chance to prevent a great tragedy.

If the clones turned on the Jedi, thousands would die. In the clones turning on the Jedi – against their will, erasing themselves – then millions more would follow.

Jon had only ever wished to try and do good, to help people.

Perhaps he would not die now as he had known he would soon, but he had the fate of the galaxy in his hands.

“You… you think we can save them?” was rasped quietly. “You think so, S – Master Antilles?”

“Both the clones and the Jedi. We will do what we can for both.”

There was a lot at stake here. So much that could go wrong.

As he stood and reached out a hand to help Tup to his feet, Jon knew that while he might be able to struggle through solving this on his own, he didn’t have to. He had friends and comrades on whom he could rely, and none of them particularly cared for the rule of the Senate in forcing the clones to behave as the product they were created to be.

Tup’s hand was thinner than Jon’s and callused by blaster rather than saber, but it was warm. Jon could feel a fantastic kernel of hope burgeoning in the young man’s chest, could feel it bubbling like relief and giddiness in his skin.

Hope that had guided Jon here, to this place, to this person.

“The Force guides us in this. We will do what must be done to save as many as we can.”

Grip tightening on his hand, the clone stared up at him with wide eyes before sinking into himself and leaning forward in relief, releasing a shaking breath.

“Thank you. _Thank you_.”


End file.
